When I expect to see you
I have a stomach full of chewed fear and undigested chaos.
When we’re alone I’m choking on the tension in the room
like something I’ve tried to swallow too fast.
Sometimes when you leave, your scent lingers in the air
just long enough to give me chills.
It smells like day old sweat, the last cigarette you smoked,
spearmint gum, cologne, caffeine and home.
I want to squeeze it like a blanket when I’m cold
and hold it under my nose like the first two fingers I ever moved inside a girl.

When you say goodnight and walk out that door
there’s a weight in my heart I cannot lose,
then a fog in my head that lasts for nearly an hour
like some mild hangover or aftershock
as though you were an earthquake and I was the ground.

Wanting to touch you so bad without having yet
has probably subtracted years from my life the way smoking does
if you wait too long to stop.
Every time you smile in that exaggerated way for me
that paralyzes my entire world,
but looks a little goofy to everyone on the outside;
I clear out a little space for the memory in my brain
the way couples carve their initials into trees
the moment they begin to think of forever
as something that can actually be known and guaranteed.

The way your eyes sparkle like handheld fireworks
when you’ve had too much to drink
or can’t stop laughing at everything I say,
gets me out of bed in the morning and carries me through the worst frustration
until I can watch in awe again.
I save my best material for you, you know,
waiting for you to lurch forward
with your mouth spread open but mostly quiet,
trying to contain sound from erupting as though it would result in some dangerous explosion
or proof of emotion you live to disown
like anyone’s expectations.

I want you to know me better than anyone else you've met
better than anyone I ever let in,
thinking sex or friendship was more than counterfeit
compared to me and you now.
I want to tell you all the stories I never share in fear of being judged
and I want all of yours from birth and twenty-six
with deleted scenes and director’s commentary.
I don’t want you to look at anyone else the way you look at me when we’re alone.
You’ll defend my name to the death even when I’ve done wrong
and never let anyone question our union, even blood.

I want to be more fun with you than I’ve ever let myself be in the best mood.
I don’t want you to ever stop laughing at me, even when I stop trying so hard.
I want to be more boring with you than I have ever been on my own,
laying all over the house with you in a chair, bed or couch
not really paying as much attention to anything on the television or in the world
as we do each other.
Hours some would call wasted
would be the best spent in my life
if it turns out I’m not crazy
when you say “me too”.

I think more about you than anything else
and fantasize about you just being with me everywhere that I am
more than I do about any sexual act.
I wait all week for your smile like a trophy at the end of a race
that cost me months of training
and all feeling in my legs.

When you’re around I forget to eat and don’t need to sleep.
The only day of the week that exists is the one where our paths cross
while our eyes dance around everything in the room
trying to pretend they don’t want to meet
like long lost lovers waiting for the first move to be made.
Time simultaneously flies and stands still in between the hours
I want to thumb ahead
as if this whole thing has already been authored by somebody
stuck between a final copy and writer’s block.
I want to be kept in the dark
as much as I want to know what happens next
so that my surprise can be genuine
the day we sit down to compare matching anecdotes,
deconstruct all the false starts, jitters and mixed signals
chuckling in unison and shaking our heads
over lost time, assumptions and the truth
in between exclamations of “wow”
and “me too”._________________shemovesme.wordpress.com

Thu Dec 01, 2011 4:53 pm

MysteryGirlModerators

Joined: 02 Jun 2007
Posts: 3418
Location: I come from a land downunder

Oh my, Brach...no one, but no one, does unrequited love like you do...there are so many images here that leap from your words and play in my mind like a home video. It is one thing to string clever words together and quite another to make your reader 'see' the word picture you have painted.
And I hope, with all my heart, that this time she says 'me too' back at you.